1st Light by a Scope Virgin

[1CM69]

Hi all,

I managed to get my new scope, my first ever scope in to the back yard yesterday for the first time as the weather was great with a favourable forecast to boot. I was so happy & excited.

It was about 5pm when I set it up to allow plenty of time for the cooling down process.

Leveling the tripod, which I wasn't looking forward to, was a complete breeze.

Initially I left all the caps on as there were a lot of bugs about and a flock of swallows overhead, I didn't fancy trying to catch an imprisoned bug inside my scope or clean bird poop off the optics.

About an hour prior to dusk I decided to take the caps off, although I did point the scope at a slight downward angle and turned the eyepiece to the horizontal plane, just to be on the safe side.

It was just the wait for darkness then.

I kept a close watch on thing & as soon as I saw the first visible stars appear I was out there and ready to setup the alignment.

Now my backyard is very small with limited views because of trees and neighbouring houses and the best area of sky for me was all over 45deg from the horizontal. Looking through the scope's eyepiece wasn't an issue because of the diagonal but my finder hasn't got a right angled eyepiece, so neck, back & leg strain at times was almost unbearable because of the positions I had to contort to but hey ho!

It became self evident almost immediately that I had forgotten in my haste one vital step, I had not aligned my finder to the scope, doh!

Anyhow, I attempted SkyAlign but this attempt eventually failed, it was so frustrating. I could pick a bright star very easily by eye, Altair for instance, then after a fashion find it in the finder even though the sky looks a tad different through the finder, lots more bright looking stars but because of the finders fairly wide view it wasn't that bad. I hit enter on my keypad.

The scope made some very slow and fine movements in it's failed attempt to center in on the target I had just acquired in the finder, this is where the lack of aligning the finder to scope comes back to bite me. I was then supposed to look through my eyepiece & see Altair at least in the FOV, if not very nearly centered. Of course it wasn't & to make matter even more complicated, the view through the eyepiece, although superb like black velvet strewn with glistening diamonds, was nothing, nothing like my naked eye view. There were heaps upon heaps of bright twinkling stars to choose from & because of the eyepiece's limited FOV, by the way I was trying aligment with a Celestron Crossaim illuminated eyepiece which is 12.5mm, I stood no chance of spotting Altair.

I found the illuminated crosshairs very annoying & they seemed to have the effect of hiding the stars even at lowest illumination but I still continued with the eyepiece with illumination turned off.

Very quickly I came to the conclusion that I was getting nowhere fast & swapped the crossaim eyepiece for the included 40mm and man what a difference, a vast difference. I could see more sky through the eyepiece and this helped in hopping from star to star by looking up with my naked eye to see star patterns I could remember quickly, making a visual note off approximately where the scope's centerline was pointing and then back again to the eyepiece.

This was all taking vast amounts of time & I was still on the 1st of a 3 star alignment procedure.

Eventually I hit the Align button after getting what I assumed to be Altair at eyepiece center and then forward on to star 2 & 3 doing the same procedures as I'd done for Altair and coming up against the same obstacles, needless to say the alignment failed and I had probablt been at this about an hour now.

I skipped to Auto 2 Star alignment, similar issues for me, again alignment failed.

Now 1 Star alignment, last ditched attempt for the night, I choose Vega.

After a fashion I achieved alignment. 

I tested my setup by slewing back to Altair and it was there, not center in the eyepiece but somewhere close to the mid point between the center & the number 9 on a clock face, I fine tuned the scope's position and centered Altair in the EP then left it for a while.

About 45 mins later when looking through the eyepiece I was duly amazed to see Altair still front and center. I swapped the 40mm EP for my 25mm, still nice and central, just a slight tweak to focus to resolve. I then tried with my 5mm EP, again tweaking the focus and it was there albeit like a boiling mass off about 4 or 5 bright spots in a relatively circular blob.

The 25mm & 5mm EPs I used here are relatively cheapos purchased mainly to mess around with Eyepiece Projection Imaging and although the view through the 5mm was unimpressive in all honesty the 25mm didn't perform badly at all.

I had set myself 2 targets to view before I had even setup, those being Albireo & M31.

For me Albireo was going to be due south and very high from about 9:30pm & M31 in a similar position but around 6 or so hours later.

I chose Albireo from the list of named stars on the HC and waited for the scope to position itself.

Looking through the 40mm EP I could see Albireo as plain as day but again slightly off from center and towards the 9 clock position, within moments I had it centered.

Very, very easy to see the 2 stars, one blue the other pale orange. The separation even through my 40mm EP (x59 Mag) seemed vast unlike the images I've seen where the 2 stars are barely apart but I guess I am going to need a 60 or 70mm EP to achieve the same.

Anyway, target 1 done, very happy.

Next up M31 and luckily for me I have an open piece of sky almost due east and checking my iPhone app, more about apps later, it was showing that both M31 and as a bonus M33 were in that piece of sky which would save me mooching around for the next few hours.

I thought I'd check out M33 first. No luck at all here, I was trying everything such as zeroing in on Hamal and slowly, very slowly tracking up as M33 looks to be approx straight up from Hamal. So I called time on M33, perhaps it just was not dark enough where I was.

Next up M31, still using my 40mm EP. I could see nothing straight away but remembering how very slightly off center my alignment is I made extremely small tracking adjustments on Motor Speed 1, still zip. I decided to take a break, have a sit down and a coffee.

After my break I was back at it but just sat out in the dark for a good 10 mins before looking through the EP but when I did, I could see it, I could make out M31. 

Wow, it was faint, fuzzy and slightly above center in my view but it was there, definitely there and I got it centered up nicely.

What I did notice is that sometimes it seemed to disappear from view even though the sky itself had not changed and a quick blink away from the eyepiece and back again and there it was.

I wasn't expecting to see a full on dog's danglies of swirls & colours, I got enough experience from camera only astrophotography to know that these images are achieve through "mechanical" means, not the human eye, so I was not underwhelmed at all but more overjoyed that I had actually viewed it at all.

That was it for my first viewing using a telescope, I decided to quit while I was ahead.

Right smartphone apps, for me particular, iPhone astronomy apps.

While attempting to find targets to look at through my scope I used a number of night sky astronomy apps and while seeming OK on their own, I did notice how far out or how deceiving they are when compared to the actual sky using a scope. This has never been an issue for me before now because I have not owned a scope until now and done much of my viewing via naked eye where slight discrepancies are less apparent.

Don't get me wrong, these apps are very educational & contain a wealth of knowledge.

At one point I was checking out what I could possibly view from my position and I could see Neptune showing in the app almost directly in front of me and what seemed like a descent angle to be above my neighbours house, sadly though once plumbed in to my scope it began slewing and eventually settled looking at a point roughly 2/3 up my neighbours wall.

I tried this on another couple of targets that seemed to be shown fairly high up according to the apps but found the same issue, the scope was lining up somewhere not far from the horizon.

It wasn't until I was finding target almost so far above my head that I was bent back before they in turn were visible by scope in my patch of the sky.

Of course this could simply be that my calibration in my iPhone is out by a fraction though.

That's it from a very happy customer - must get my finder aligned!!

Regards..,

 

[ronin]

Reads that you did  a goto to get Hamal then a manua move to M33 ??

Think the best method would have been to have gone to Hamal, done a sync or whatever on Hamal then told the scope to goto M33. The scope basically "resets" itself to Hamal then movements are made relative to this, so the small hop to M33 means small errors so greater chance of it being out of view.

For M31 you need a lower magnification to see much of it then your scope will deliver, for all of it you need 3 degrees and that comes down to 20x approximately, on a CPC 925 you are not going to get that. I always stick a set of binoculars in peoples hands for M31.

Try M13, M92, M57, Almaak. Think M5 and M53 should available - basically one either side of Arcturus. M82+M81 are options

[1CM69]

2 minutes ago, ronin said:

Reads that you did  a goto to get Hamal then a manua move to M33 ??

Think the best method would have been to have gone to Hamal, done a sync or whatever on Hamal then told the scope to goto M33. The scope basically "resets" itself to Hamal then movements are made relative to this, so the small hop to M33 means small errors so greater chance of it being out of view.

For M31 you need a lower magnification to see much of it then your scope will deliver, for all of it you need 3 degrees and that comes down to 20x approximately, on a CPC 925 you are not going to get that. I always stick a set of binoculars in peoples hands for M31.

Try M13, M92, M57, Almaak. Think M5 and M53 should available - basically one either side of Arcturus. M82+M81 are options

Thanks, I'll add those targets to my list. 

[John]

Interesting report and overall successful I reckon

M33 is a lot, lot fainter and more dispersed than M31. You could easily be looking right at it for ages and not even realise it even with a relatively large scope. After M31 and M32 (which is right next door), M81 and M82 are probably the best bright galaxies to have a look at.

The technology does take some getting used to but you will have more success with each session until you don't have to think about the setup side of things much.

 

 

 

[1CM69]

9 minutes ago, John said:

Interesting report and overall successful I reckon

M33 is a lot, lot fainter and more dispersed than M31. You could easily be looking right at it for ages and not even realise it even with a relatively large scope. After M31 and M32 (which is right next door), M81 and M82 are probably the best bright galaxies to have a look at.

The technology does take some getting used to but you will have more success with each session until you don't have to think about the setup side of things much.

 

 

 

Definitely a success, I achieved my target albeit in a long winded roundabout way. 

I'll get this alignment lark sorted, bit like first day riding a bike without stabilisers. 

Regards..,

[faulksy]

when i had a cpc 9.25 i used a trick that brantuk (kim) told me, do your alignment in a triangular fashion i.e. start low in the east then something south but closer to the zenith then something in the west low down again. you also need to do the alignment quite quick or your accuracy will be out and maybe thats why you had alignment fail. its all practise. glad your enjoying it though

[1CM69]

6 minutes ago, faulksy said:

when i had a cpc 9.25 i used a trick that brantuk (kim) told me, do your alignment in a triangular fashion i.e. start low in the east then something south but closer to the zenith then something in the west low down again. you also need to do the alignment quite quick or your accuracy will be out and maybe thats why you had alignment fail. its all practise. glad your enjoying it though

Thanks for the advice. 

I was considering something very similar myself strangely enough & having a horizon would have helped me a awful lot. 

[faulksy]

Just now, 1CM69 said:

Thanks for the advice. 

I was considering something very similar myself strangely enough & having a horizon would have helped me a awful lot. 

also to help the scope doesnt need to be level close will do , all you need now is a big wide field eye piece

[Pig]

On ‎27‎/‎08‎/‎2016 at 20:13, faulksy said:

also to help the scope doesnt need to be level close will do , all you need now is a big wide field eye piece

Any suggestions ?

[Sirius Starwatcher]

32 mm Panaview from FLO. It was recommended to me and it's a great wide field EP.and not too expensive.

https://www.firstlightoptics.com/skywatcher-eyepieces/skywatcher-panaview-2-eyepieces.html

[faulksy]

11 hours ago, Pig said:

Any suggestions ?

28mm nirvana will be good, but the widest is the vixen lv 42mm think its around 1.3* michael (doc spock) has one. the widest i had was the sw 40mm aero and that was ace in the 9.25

what did you use piggy

[BGazing]

On 29/08/2016 at 20:47, Pig said:

Any suggestions ?

I like my Baader Aspheric 31mm, wanted to order 36mm but made I wrong click. I do not regret it, a very nice EP. (scope 8 in SCT)

Re blinking in and out reported in the OP, I remember a comparable (but not that similar) situation which I still am not sure what exactly happened. Watched M27 through my 127 Mak and it looked like a star inside nebula was blinking in and out of visibility. Whether it was because it was just on the edge of visibility at that particular moment...I do not know. But it was cool and lasted throughout the entire observation of M27.

[Pig]

T31 monster  I think I could just about achieve M81 & 2 simultaneously with the 9.25.

[Special K]

Sounds great!  A bit (lot) of persistence always pays off in this hobby.  Enjoy the views!